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SpiritualRoadmapbyGhazali, page : 60
characteristics and moral constitution of the soul and enumerating the various
types of soul and the method of moderating and controlling them. This they
borrow from the teaching of the mystics, those men of piety whose chief
occupation is to meditate upon Allah, to oppose the passions, and to walk in the
way leading to Allah by withdrawing from worldly pleasure. In their spiritual
warfare they have learned about the virtues and vices of the soul and the defects
in its actions, and what they have learned they have clearly expressed. The
philosophers have taken over this teaching and mingled it with their own
disquisitions, furtively using this embellishment to sell their rubbishy wares more
readily. Assuredly there was in the age of the philosophers, as indeed there is in
21
every age, a group of those godly men, of whom Allah never uncovers the world.
They are the pillars of the earth, and by their blessings mercy comes down on
the people of the earth, as we read in the Prophetic Statement where
Muhammad, peace be upon him, says: “Through them you receive rain, through
them you receive sustenance; of their number were the men of the Cave”. And
types of soul and the method of moderating and controlling them. This they
borrow from the teaching of the mystics, those men of piety whose chief
occupation is to meditate upon Allah, to oppose the passions, and to walk in the
way leading to Allah by withdrawing from worldly pleasure. In their spiritual
warfare they have learned about the virtues and vices of the soul and the defects
in its actions, and what they have learned they have clearly expressed. The
philosophers have taken over this teaching and mingled it with their own
disquisitions, furtively using this embellishment to sell their rubbishy wares more
readily. Assuredly there was in the age of the philosophers, as indeed there is in
21
every age, a group of those godly men, of whom Allah never uncovers the world.
They are the pillars of the earth, and by their blessings mercy comes down on
the people of the earth, as we read in the Prophetic Statement where
Muhammad, peace be upon him, says: “Through them you receive rain, through
them you receive sustenance; of their number were the men of the Cave”. And